Certain serious restrictions of a linguistic and a cultural nature immediately confront anyone who undertakes to produce a translation with a considerable degree of dynamic equivalence. The linguistic restrictions involve both the literary forms (poetry, narration, proverbs, etc.) and the vehicle used as an accompanying instrument of transmission of the message, e.g. song or motion picture. The cultural restrictions involve attitudes about so-called "faithfulness" in translating, the
pressures exerted by already existing translations, and the diversity of dialects in the receptor language. A still further type of restriction is imposed by diglot publication.
The influence of literary forms is found in two principal areas: (1) the occurrence of sound effects, e.g. puns, acrostic series, and rhyming and alliterative sequences, and (2) rhythmic speech utterances, whether rhymed or not.
There is little possibility of reproducing various types of sound effects; for languages differ in the types of sounds they use and the values they tend to attach to these uses, and it is largely a matter of chance if a sound effect in one language can be duplicated by an equivalent, though not identical, sound effect in another. When languages are closely related, as German is to English and Hebrew to Arabic, one can sometimes hit on a useful parallel in sound; but even in closely cognate languages sound effects can rarely be adequately translated with much formal similarity.
As already indicated, the translation of a poem in verse really involves "composing another pocm" (Mathews. 1959. p. 67). When one must organize amessage into periodic units, as the composition of poetry requires (Stankiewicz. 1960b. p. 77), only rarely can the content be translated by the customary equivalents. Horace sensed this problem centuries ago and warned translators against any word-for-word kind of rendering (Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus interpres).
Perhaps the secret to understanding the underlying problem involved in translating poetry is the fact that, as Mukarovský (in Garvin, 1955) has said, poetic language is the systematic violation of the language norm, or perhaps more rightly, the superimposition of one set of constraints upon another. However, since this poetic superstructure is so diverse in different languages, it is understandable that formal agreement is rare. Therefore, in the translation of poetry one must abandon formal equivalence and strive for dynamic equivalence. Moreover, the very purpose of poetry is to a large extent the communication of feeling, not everyday facts. and hence the translator must take the liberty of "composing another poem" capable of eliciting similar feeling.
However, the translator of poetry without musical accompaniment is relatively free in comparison with one who must translate a song-poetry set to music. Under such circumstances the translator must concern himself with a number of severe restrictions: (1) a fixed length for each phrase, with precisely the right number of syllables, (2) the observance of syllabic prominence (the accented vowels or long syllables must match correspondingly emphasized notes in the music), (3) rhyme, where required, and (4) vowels with appropriate quality for certain emphatic or greatly lengthened notes. Obviously the translator of song "toils in a strait jacket," as Peyser has rightly said (1922、 p. 359).
Because of the severe restrictions form places upon the song translator, he must make certain adjustments in order to accomplish anything at all. For one thing, he may take the theme of a song or hymn and adapt it to other music, as John Wesley did in translating thirty-three hymns from German into English. These hymns in German represented twenty-nine different meters, but Wesley used only six. As Henry Bett (1940, p.290) says, "John Wesley was enough of a poet to know that many of the German metres could not be imitated successfully in English, and so he did not attempt it." But John Wesley's approach to German hymns, though certainly the simpler way of dealing with the problem, is not the usual one, for in general it is the music that is preserved, and not the words or theme. Accordingly, since the form must be maintained, the translator must make certain sacrifices in content. This he does by radical alterations in arrangement of themes, omission of certain elements and addition of others, and even alteration of the themes themselves. All this is quite proper, if words and theme are to fit the music. One requirement, however, is essential in any lyric, namely, that the words be completely natural. Nothing so completely spoils the charm of a song as awkward words or unnatural grammar. But these adjustments, which are perfectly possible in individual songs, cannot be employed in the same way in opега, in which the dramatic sequences and the total plot usually demand much greater conformity to the musical vehicle.
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